Lonely
by Mister-Doctor-Professor-What
Summary: Eight-year-old Juliet knows that her older cousin Tybalt is lonely, and she wants to fix it. Just a short fic done for a prompt on Tumblr.


**[AUTHOR'S NOTE] My second fanfic, yay! This one was done for a prompt on Tumblr: "Tybalt/Juliet friendship, lonely".**

**I ended up making it kind of a sequel to my last fic ("Tybalt's Sword"), because hey, there's a good reason for Tybalt to be lonely.**

**Also, just to make it clear: in my mind, Tybalt lives with Juliet and her parents. I guess his parents died or something? I don't really have an established backstory…**

**Anyway, here's the fic~**

* * *

Juliet was not stupid.

She was only eight and a half years old, she rarely left the Capulet mansion, she didn't know what the word "feud" meant and she was just barely getting through her dance lessons, but she certainly wasn't stupid.

She could tell when someone was feeling lonely.

Juliet's older cousin, Tybalt, thought that Juliet was stupid. He thought that she couldn't see him when he sulked down the hall to his room, locking himself up there for the rest of the day. He thought that she couldn't hear her parents when they yelled at him for skipping his fencing lesson again. He thought that she wouldn't notice how strange it was that he was missing the lessons that he was normally so passionate about.

But Tybalt was wrong; she was not stupid. She knew that something was up. And she was determined to make it better.

It was a quiet, gloomy morning when Juliet decided to put her plan into action. Tybalt had woken up and eaten breakfast with the rest of the family, but had crawled right back to his room soon after, as usual. Juliet waited a few minutes before following him upstairs and knocking on his door.

"Go away," growled Tybalt's disembodied voice from behind the door.

"Nope," Juliet chirped in reply. "Not gonna. I wanna talk to you."

"What?"

Without another word, Juliet let herself in to Tybalt's room and sat down beside him on his bed. She grinned at him.

Tybalt was not amused. "Leave me alone, you little twat."

"Nope, I'm not leaving you alone. You don't want me to!"

Juliet could tell that Tybalt was very confused by this. He made a funny face. She giggled.

That just made Tybalt angrier. "What do you mean, I don't want you to? Of course I want you to leave! I-"

"Wrong," Juliet cut him off. "You're just pretending you want to be alone 'cause you're sad, and I think you're sad because you're lonely! So you don't really want to be alone. So I'm helping you by making you not alone!"

Juliet grinned at Tybalt again. He stared back blankly and blinked.

"Well?" Juliet asked eagerly.

"Well what?"

"Was I right?"

"About _what_?"

"About you being lonely."

Tybalt hesitated. "…no."

Once again, he had underestimated his little cousin. "I know you're _lyyyy-ing_," she sang, bouncing happily on the bed.

Tybalt glared at her, but didn't say anything. He turned to face the wall. Juliet scooched closer to him.

It was time for step two of the plan.

She spoke with a much more serious tone, gently putting her hand on her cousin's shoulder, the way her father did when he comforted her. "You know, you can talk to me if you want. The grown-ups always say I'm a good listener, so I can listen to you. I dunno if it'll help, but I think talking to someone is a lot better than sitting up here alone all the time, 'specially if you're lonely…"

And then something amazing happened. Tybalt, the proud, stubborn, secretive boy, turned to Juliet and told her everything. He told her of the friend that he had so slowly made and so quickly lost. He told her of the feelings of hurt and betrayal that he had felt, and how ashamed he was for being so heavily affected by one little incident. He told her that yes, he was lonely, terribly lonely, and that he was glad to finally have someone to open up to.

When he was done talking, Tybalt wiped the tears from his eyes and gave a weak smile. Juliet smiled back. Her plan had worked.

Tybalt let out a small, shaky laugh and gave his cousin a light shove. "Okay, you're done here. You can go back to doing whatever it is eight-year-old girls do. And don't tell anyone what went on in here, got it?"

"Got it," Juliet nodded. She hopped off the bed and skipped away, humming a happy little tune.

Everything was so much brighter than it had been that morning. The gloomy clouds were being chased away by the early afternoon sun, Juliet was smarter than everyone thought she was, and she knew that today, someone was a little less lonely because of her.


End file.
